Politics, War, People, Poverty, Human Rights, Pollution

Millions of dollars have gone to farmers years after their death as part of various farm safety net programs under the US Department of Agriculture, according to a recent government audit.

Federal auditors who poured through the USDA’s crop insurance, disaster assistance and conservation programs have found that $36.6 million were disbursed to deceased recipients, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO report points to the biggest offender as the USDA’s Risk Management Agency, which disburses crop insurance, as having issued $22 million in subsidies one or two years after a recipient’s death.

The report has been released ahead of meetings in the House and Senate to hammer out a farm bill that may expand subsidies like crop insurance, and casts doubts on the Agriculture Department’s ability to weed out waste, fraud and abuse.

The GAO itself states that findings “may call into question whether these farm safety net programs are benefiting the agricultural sector as intended.”

Though the funds improperly doled out to the deceased farmers represent a fraction of the $20 billion in annual federal subsidies for farm incomes, as the Los Angeles Times reports, the report also comes at a critical juncture for Congress as both parties spar over the total cost of a pending $1 trillion farm bill. And if segments such as crop insurance do increase as expected, then the USDA’s inability to detect waste or fraud may only increase accordingly.

For its part, the department of agriculture is not disputing the GAO’s findings, though it has taken exception to claims that it did not have sufficient controls in place to detect improper payments, according to the New York Times.

Environmental activists, who oppose federal subsidies that, for example, encourage an artificially inflated production of corn – with implications into the popularity of GMO crops and the widespread use of high-fructose corn syrup – point to government waste as indicating a need for reforms.

“Not only are unlimited crop insurance subsidies flowing to the largest and most successful farm businesses, they are now going to deceased policyholders,” said Scott Faber, vice president of the Environmental Working Group in a statement issued Monday.

“At a time when some lawmakers want to cut off funding for the hungriest children, we find out today the federal government has spent $22 million over four years to lavish insurance subsidies to individuals who are no longer alive,” added Faber.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) opposes what it deems “bloated” farm subsidies that produce ultimately harmful incentives to plow up wetlands, grasslands and marginal lands, or place any emphasis on soil health. As RT recently reported, corn subsidies combined with a growing deficiency in GMO corn has resulted in greater use of pesticides.

According to a recent report published by the journal Food Policy cited by EWG US farm subsidies ultimately “have negligible impact on the prices paid by consumers for food. EWG cites other evidence that even the total elimination of US farm programs “would have a very modest effect on farm prices and production” of subsidized crops such as corn and wheat.

Though the debate over whether the currently gargantuan sum doled out by the federal government in the form of the farm bill is fair, is ongoing, this latest disclosure of funds making their way to deceased individuals only provides more ammunition to critics of government waste.

Both EWG and a slew of advocacy organizations that are concerned over everything from GMOs to pesticide use argue that crop insurance programs in particular have been transformed from their original intent, which was to compensate farmers from weather-caused crop losses, to a virtual guarantee of farm income.

GAO auditors are now suggesting that the USDA implement use of the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File to identify payments made to dead individuals. According to the GAO, agencies under the department of agriculture are currently utilizing an incomplete version of that data, and thus failing to identify deceased recipients.Source

If there is one thing the US Government does really well it is waste money. Their accounting is just horrid.

I wonder if they ever found the trillions lost as reported the day before 9/11 and If I remember correctly they lost and\other trillion or so latter, as well as all the money lost on contractors during the Iraq war?

You’re not going to believe what millions of Americans have been eating the last few years (Thanks, Bush! Thanks meat industry lobbyists!).

You’re not going to believe what you’ve been eating the last few years (thanks, Bush! thanks meat industry lobbyists!) when you eat a McDonald’s burger (or the hamburger patties in kids’ school lunches) or buy conventional ground meat at your supermarket:

According to today’s New York Times, The “majority of hamburger” now sold in the U.S. now contains fatty slaughterhouse trimmings “the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil,” “typically including most of the material from the outer surfaces of the carcass” that contains “larger microbiological populations.”

This “nasty pink slime,” as one FDA microbiologist called it, is now wrung in a centrifuge to remove the fat, and then treated with AMMONIA to “retard spoilage,” and turned into “a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips”.

Thus saving THREE CENTS a pound off production costs. And making the company, Beef Products Inc., a fortune. $440 million/year in revenue. Ain’t that something?

And to emphasize: this pink slime isn’t just in fast food burgers or free lunches for poor kids:

With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

Bush’s U.S.D.A. also allowed these “innovators” to get away with listing the ammonia as “a processing agent” instead of by name. And they also approved the processing method — and later exempted the hamburger from routine testing of meat sold to the general public — strictly based on the company’s claims of safety, which were not backed by any independent testing.

Because the ammonia taste was so bad (“It was frozen, but you could still smell ammonia,” said Dr. Charles Tant, a Georgia agriculture department official. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”) the company started using a less alkaline ammonia treatment, and now we know — thanks to testing done for the school lunch program — that the nasty stuff isn’t even reliably killing the pathogens.

But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

In July, school lunch officials temporarily banned their hamburger makers from using meat from a Beef Products facility in Kansas because of salmonella — the third suspension in three years, records show. Yet the facility remained approved by the U.S.D.A. for other customers.

Presented by The Times with the school lunch test results, top [U.S.D.A.] department officials said they were not aware of what their colleagues in the lunch program had been finding for years.

The New York Times article today has a rather innocuous headline, “Safety of beef processing method is questioned.”

I’d say this quote from the U.S.D.A. department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, who called the processed beef “pink slime” in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues, represents the situation better: “I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”

I’ve been thinking about an action item on this issue, and I’ve got three ideas: a. write Michelle Obama through this web form: http://www.whitehouse.gov/… or snail mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500; 2. print out the NY Times article and give it to the manager of your local supermarket, and ask them if they sell any kind of ground beef that doesn’t contain this “pink slime” or if their butchers will grind meat fresh for you; 3. just stop buying the damned stuff altogether.

This rates right up there with feeding dead animals to cattle, pigs or any other animal. The Mad Cow problem a while back. Animals that are vegetarians, not meat eaters and at the time it was a ridiculous thing to do. Gee I wonder do they still do that?

Then there are all the antibiotics and hormones given to animals, most of which are not necessary. Now they put Ammonia in the meat. To gross.

That made money as well at the expense of the animals and consumers.

Ammonia is what was and probably used in wax stripping products for tile floors. I certainly would never eat the stuff. Very corrosive.

Maybe student all over the US should do like these two high school students did. Test for stuff in the food they eat. Seems the Government isn’t doing the job. What a fabulous learning experience for kids to boot.

So how many student’s are there in the US who could start testing on food for all sorts of things. Chemicals, antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, herbicides or toxic stuff, like Ammonia?

Students use Guelph DNA tech to uncover food fraud

December 28, 2009

Two American high school students have used unique Canadian DNA technology to identify numerous mislabeled food products in New York City markets, deepening concerns over the widespread problem of fraudulence in the marketplace.

From mislabelled fish to cow’s milk being passed off as pricey sheep’s milk, the Grade 12 students said a high percentage of the foods they collected as samples were not what they were said to be.

Brenda Tan and Matt Cost of Trinity School in Manhattan gathered about 150 DNA samples from foods and objects in their homes and neighbourhood as part of a science project with Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History.

Tan said they found that 11 of the 66 fish, prepackaged and other food products bought largely at neighbourhood markets were mislabelled.

That included a specialty sheep’s milk cheese that was actually made from cow’s milk, venison dog treats made of beef, and sturgeon caviar that was really Mississippi paddlefish.

“You should get what you pay for,” Cost said from New York before their findings are published in January’s edition of BioScience magazine.

“We don’t know where it occurs, but most of the mislabelling involves substitution of something less expensive or desirable, which suggests it’s done for profit.”

The students gathered the DNA samples in their apartments, supermarkets, their school and at fresh markets, finding that most of the hundreds of samples had detectable DNA even after being frozen, dry-cleaned or shipped thousands of kilometres.

They sent the samples to the natural history museum, which tapped into a databank of DNA bar codes that was pioneered by Canadian scientists at the University of Guelph in Ontario.

The Consortium for the Bar Code of Life project involves identifying a particular DNA sequence in marine and animal life that is unique to the species. That allows scientists to accurately identify the species and create a so-called bar code of its DNA similar to the black and white stripes on store goods.

“I didn’t expect to find very much recognizable DNA, but it was astounding at the end of the project how much there is just lying around us,” said Cost, 18.

The teens say they have discovered a possible new species of cockroach, a long-legged centipede that originated in Europe and an oriental latrine fly considered an invasive species in the southern U.S.

“DNA is resilient and it’s everywhere and a great way to identify things in the 21st century,” said Tan. “I mean, 10 years ago I don’t think this would have been possible.”

Student project has wider applications

Bob Hanner, a biologist at Guelph who led the work on bar coding, praised the student project and said it shows the value of a technology that can be used to identify illicit goods at borders and track the spread of disease.

“It’s another good example of how DNA bar coding can be used to engage students in real science questions, particularly like the market substitution problem,” said Hanner, associate director of the Canadian Barcode of Life Network.

“It’s continuing evidence along the lines of some of our earlier work showing what a powerful tool bar coding is.”

The work follows up on the findings of two other Trinity School students in 2008, who found one-quarter of fish they bought at markets and restaurants in Manhattan was mislabelled.

Hanner said he’s working closely with the Food and Drug Administration in the States to develop bar coding into an acceptable regulatory tool.

But he says Canada has been slow to embrace the technology as a way to discover contraband, mislabelled goods and possibly poisonous products.

He said the FDA and other agencies are sending their research scientists to Guelph for training in using the technology, but that “so far we haven’t seen that kind of proactive development in Canada.”

The FDA has adopted it for fish identification and also used DNA bar coding to distinguish the seed pods of star anise from another identical herb that contains neurotoxins.

The U.S. Agriculture Department is also working on a global database of DNA bar codes for fruit flies to deal with horticultural pests, and lumber products to identify endangered timber products.

Hanner is hoping as the technology gains ground, research continues into its use and the databank of species grows, it could soon be used to check goods at ports of entry.

He said he can soon see a time when people will be able to use tabletop devices at border crossings, schools and government departments to quickly identify a plant or animal.

“What would be the Holy Grail for a number of these agencies is to be able to do onsite bar coding,” he said. “The technology exists. It just needs to be miniaturized.”

Mislabeling food is a crime. Fraud to say the least, but it also endangers the public at large. If you have an allergy to certain foods, this type of practice could kill you. That would be murder. It could cause major health problems even if you didn’t die. With Health Care being what it is in the US this should be a concern to all people.

Eating a product that has be mislabeled causing you to become ill and what if you are one of the 45 million who do not have Health Insurance.

Food safety in the US is a joke. So I do believe it is time for the kids to get together with their teachers and do testing as the Government really does little to protect them. The lives they save may be their own.

Critics of ‘pink slime’ meat gaining ground

March 15, 2012

ALBANY, N.Y. — “Pink slime” just went from a simmer to a boil. In less than a week earlier this month, the stomach-turning epithet for ammonia-treated ground beef filler suddenly became a potent rallying cry by activists fighting to ban the product from supermarket shelves and school lunch trays.

Though the term has been used pejoratively for at least several years, it wasn’t until last week that social media suddenly exploded with worry and an online petition seeking its ouster from schools lit up, quickly garnering hundreds of thousands of supporters.

“It sounds disgusting,” said food policy expert Marion Nestle, who notes that the unappetizing nickname made it easier for the food movement to flex its muscles over this cause.

“A lot of people have been writing about it. Therefore, more people know about it, therefore more people are queasy about it, particularly when you start thinking about how this stuff turns up in school lunches,” said Nestle, a professor at New York University’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health.

The controversy centres on “lean finely textured beef,” a low-cost ingredient in ground beef made from fatty bits of meat left over from other cuts. The bits are heated to about 37 C (100 F) and spun to remove most of the fat. The lean mix then is compressed into blocks for use in ground meat. The product, made by South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc., also is exposed to “a puff of ammonium hydroxide gas” to kill bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella.

There are no precise numbers on how prevalent the product is and it does not have to be labelled as an ingredient. Past estimates have ranged as high as 70 per cent; one industry officials estimates it is in at least half of the ground meat and burgers in the United States.

It has been on the market for years and federal regulators say it meets standards for food safety. But advocates for wholesome food have denounced the process as a potentially unsafe and unappetizing example of industrialized food production.

The epithet “pink slime,” coined by a federal microbiologist, has appeared in the media at least since a critical 2009 New York Times report. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has railed against it and it made headlines after McDonald’s and other major chains last year discontinued their use of ammonia-treated beef.

But “pink slime” outrage seemed to reach new heights last week amid reports by The Daily and ABC News. The Daily piece dealt with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s purchase of meat that included “pink slime” for school lunches.

The story touched a nerve with Houston resident Bettina Siegel, whose blog “The Lunch Tray” focuses on kids’ food. On March 6, she started an online petition on Change.org asking Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to “put an immediate end to the use of ‘pink slime’ in our children’s school food.”

“When I put it up, I had this moment of embarrassment,” she said, “What if only 10 people sign this?”

No problem there. Supporters signed on fast. By Wednesday afternoon, the electronic petition had more than 220,000 signatures. Organizers of Change.org said the explosive growth is rare among the roughly 10,000 petitions started there every month.

Meanwhile, Google searches for “pink slime” spiked dramatically. It has become the food version of Joseph Kony, the rogue African warlord virtually unknown in the United States until this month, when an online video campaign against him caught fire. (A bogus Campaign)

But why is “pink slime” striking a nerve now?

Issues can to go from a simmer to an explosion when content with broad interest — such as like food safety — is picked up and disseminated by widely connected people, said Marc A. Smith, director of the Social Media Research Foundation. These people act like “broadcast hubs,” dispersing the information to different communities.

“What’s happening is that the channels whereby this flood can go down this hill have expanded,” Smith said. “The more there are things like Twitter, the easier it is for these powder kegs to explode.”

In this case, Siegel thinks the added element of children’s school lunches could have set off this round.

“That’s what upset me. This idea that children are passively sitting in a lunch room eating what the government sees fit to feed them and McDonald’s has chosen not to use it, but the government is still feeding it to them,” she said. “That really got my ire.”

The USDA — which did not directly address Siegel’s petition — buys about a fifth of the food served in schools across the U.S. The agency this year is contracted to buy 111.5 million pounds of ground beef for the National School Lunch Program. About seven million pounds of that is from Beef Products Inc., though the pink product in question never accounts for more than 15 per cent of a single serving of ground beef.

“All USDA ground beef purchases must meet the highest standards for food safety. USDA has strengthened ground beef food safety standards in recent years and only allows products into commerce that we have confidence are safe,” agency spokesman Aaron Lavallee said in an email.

Beef Product Inc. stresses that its product is 100 per cent lean beef and is approved by a series of industry experts. The company’s new website, pinkslimeisamyth.com, refutes some common criticisms of the product (“Myth 4: Boneless lean beef trimmings are produced from inedible meat”).

The National Meat Association also has joined the fight, refuting that the product is made from “scraps destined for pet food” and other claims. The industry group also said that ammonium hydroxide is used in baked goods, puddings and other processed foods.

Association CEO Barry Carpenter, who has visited BPI plants and watched the process, said critics don’t seem to have the facts.

“It’s one of those things. It’s the esthetics of it that just gets people’s attention,” Carpenter said. “And in this case, it’s not even legitimate esthetics of it. It’s a perception of what it is.”

Proponents of the process stress that it is both federally regulated and safe. Though Nestle said the focus on safety misses the larger point.

“I’m not arguing that that stuff is unsafe,” she said, “I’m arguing that it’s the lowest common denominator.” Source

ANIMAL ANTIBIOTICS DISCOVERED IN COMMON VEGETABLES
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have found residues from animal antibiotics in common produce, says a new study. Spreading raw manure on fields from animals treated with antibiotics is a common practice on conventional farms. Unfortunately scientists have now discovered that vegetables like corn, cabbage and green onions absorb those antibiotics, which are then ingested by consumers. “Vegetarians may think the huge overuse of antibiotics in livestock and poultry will not affect them, but that’s not true,” stated Margaret Mellon, the director of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Consumers eating vegetables grown on soil fertilized with manure may be unknowingly ingesting antibiotics.” Regular consumption of these antibiotics can then cause bacteria in the body to become resistant.
ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION
6771 South Silver Hill Drive
Finland, MN 55603
Phone: (218)-353-7454 Fax: (218) 353-7652

What’s in the Meat You Eat?
Did you know that approximately 70 percent of all antibiotics and related drugs produced in the United States are given to livestock and poultry? These drugs are used for nontherapeutic purposes such as accelerating growth and preventing the diseases caused by overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on “factory farms.” Unfortunately, this practice results in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can cause difficult-to-treat diseases in humans.

Overuse leaves drug useless against avian influenza
Farmers in China have been using an antiviral drug meant for humans to control avian influenza in their chickens since the late 1990s. As a result, the subtype of avian influenza that is considered most likely to trigger a human pandemic has developed resistance to the drug. It’s the first time overuse in animal agriculture of an antiviral, rather than an antibiotic, has compromised the efficacy of a human drug in a major way. The Chinese government encouraged farmers to use the drug, called amantadine, although such use is banned in the United States and many other countries. The only remaining drug that could be used to treat humans, oseltamivir, is prohibitively expensive and difficult to obtain. The situation is a dramatic example of why UCS advocates against the inappropriate use in animal agriculture of drugs that are valuable in human medicine. Read the Washington Post article about the story.

USDA criticized on mad cow investigation
The second case of mad cow disease in the U.S. – the first in a U.S.-born cow – was confirmed in June. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been criticized for: not releasing the news until last month, although initial tests were done last November; mislabeling the sample; and not running a confirmatory test sooner after one test was positive and another produced an inconclusive result. The positive reading of mad cow was finally confirmed by a laboratory in England. The USDA screens only one cow in 90 for mad cow disease, while Europe screens one cow in four and Japan screens every cow it slaughters. The USDA also allows risky practices to continue, such as feeding chicken litter that may contain cow parts back to cattle. Read the New York Times article about the case here.

Monsanto Corn Study raises safety questions: According to the study, rats that were fed MON 863 had smaller kidneys and elevated levels of white blood cells and lymphocytes compared to those that were fed conventional corn. In the United States and Canada, farmers have been growing MON 863 corn since 2003. (Also Check Dangerous Chemicals for more information)

The information on msgtruth.org is a culmination of the important independent research regarding the food additive Monosodium Glutamate. msgtruth.org is a not-for-profit site created by scientific, caring citizens trained in food science, food processing, and biology, who no longer work for the food industry.

Iowa, North Carolina are top users of antibiotics in livestock
A new report by Environmental Defense ranks antibiotic use in animal agriculture by state. Iowa ranks highest in antibiotic use, with 2.2 million pounds of medically important antibiotics fed to livestock annually, followed by North Carolina with 1.7 million pounds. Delaware is the most intensive user, with 187,000 pounds of antibiotics per thousand square miles. People living in areas with intensive use of antibiotics as feed additives may be at greater risk of contracting antibiotic-resistant infections. The rankings were based on data taken from UCS’s report (2000). Read the new report, Resistant Bugs and Antibiotic Drugs (PDF).

The results of our study indicate the following:Tetracycline, penicillin, erythromycin, and other antimicrobials that are important in human use are used extensively in the absence of disease for nontherapeutic purposes in today’s livestock production.

Cattle, swine, and poultry are routinely given antimicrobials throughout their lives. Many of the antimicrobials given to livestock are important in human medicine.

The overall quantity of antimicrobials used in agriculture is enormous.Many consumers will be surprised to find that tens of millions of pounds of antimicrobials are used in livestock systems. We estimate that every year livestock producers in the United States use 24.6 million pounds of antimicrobials in the absence of disease for nontherapeutic purposes: approximately 10.3 million pounds in hogs, 10.5 million pounds in poultry, and 3.7 million pounds in cattle. The tonnage would be even higher if antimicrobials used therapeutically for animals were included.

GM soy hit harder by Brazil’s drought than conventional varieties

English IPS News via NewsEdge Corporation : RIO DE JANEIRO — Drought in southern Brazil has reduced this year’s important soybean harvest dramatically in Rio Grande do Sul state — and added fuel to the heated national debate about transgenic crops.

Genetically modified (GM) soy, which accounts for the majority of soybean production in the southern state, suffered greater losses than conventional soy varieties, according to reports by local growers.

NEW LAW FORCES GENETIC POLLUTERS TO PAYFollowing the example of Germany, Denmark has passed a law that will punish farmers planting genetically engineered (GE) crops if they contaminate the crops or fields of organic or non-GE farmers. Because GE crops sell for less than organic or conventional crops, farmers whose fields are contaminated by drifting GE pollen undergo major financial losses. Under the new law, if a farmer is growing conventional or organic crops, and their field is contaminated by drifting GE pollen, the farmer will be compensated for their losses by the government. The Denmark government will then recoup those costs from the farmer whose field the GE pollen originated in.

Monsanto

It is in the Food We Eat. This is a World Problem.

Monsanto Produced Agent Orange, which is a Herbicide and better Known as Lasso which was used and is still being used in some countries by Farmers, I am not positive so don’t quote me on that. It has profound side affects such as Diabetes, cancer and Spina Bifida and other deformities. The side affects are huge in number and has affected millions around the world. If Roundup is comparable we are in trouble. You are what you eat and it does get into food. When it rains the Herbicide or Pesticide goes into the ground and into the plants and into the fruit or whatever the food part of the plant may be. Then you eat it and become ill. Don’t have to be a genius or rocket scientist to know that one.

Two new peer-reviewed scientific studies have further confirmed the toxicity of glyphosate, the world’s most commonly used herbicide. The June 2005 scientific journal “Environmental Health Perspectives” reports that glyphosate, sold by Monsanto under the brand name “Roundup,” damages human placental cells at exposure levels ten times less than what the company claims is safe. A study in the August journal Ecological Applications found that even when applied at concentrations that are one-third of the maximum concentrations typically found in waterways, Roundup still killed up to 71 percent of tadpoles in the study.

Similar glyphosate studies around the world have been equally alarming. The American Academy of Family Physicians epidemiological research has now linked exposure to the herbicide with increased risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a life-threatening cancer, while a Canadian study has linked glyphosate exposure with increased risk for miscarriage. A 2002 study linked glyphosate exposure with increased incidence of attention deficit disorder in children. Despite these studies, Monsanto continues to advertise Roundup, sprayed heavily on 140 million acres of genetically engineered crops across the world, as one of the “safest” pesticides on the market.

This was sent to me by a friend today. I checked out some web sites and found a couple of others on the subject. What a sneaky underhanded way to create sick people. Profiteers.

You are what you eat for sure.

MSG – used in Coffee – (read this for sure) please read

this. It is startling!! Food additive “MSG” is a Slow Poison. Slow Poisoning
MSG hides behind 25 or more names, such as “Natural Flavoring”.

MSG is also in your favorite Tim Horton’s and other
brand coffee shops! Pass this on to those who still may be unaware
or disbelieving of the dangers of MSG. I wondered if there could be an actual chemical causing the massive obesity
epidemic, so did a friend of mine, John Erb. He was a research
assistant at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and
spent years working for the government.
He made an amazing discovery while going through
scientific journals for a book he was writing called “The Slow
Poisoning of America “. In hundreds of studies around the world,
scientists were creating obese mice and rats to use in diet or
diabetes test studies.

No strain of rat or mice is naturally obese, so the
scientists have to create them. They make these morbidly obese
creatures by injecting them with MSG when they are first born. The
MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates; causing rats
(and humans?) to become obese. They even have a title for the fat
rodents they create: “MSG-Treated Rats”.

I was shocked too. I went to my kitchen, checking the
cupboards and the fridge. MSG was in everything! The Campbell ‘s
soups, the Hostess Doritos, the Lays flavored potato chips, Top
Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper, Heinz canned gravy, Swanson
frozen prepared meals, Kraft salad dressings, especially the
‘healthy low fat’ ones.
The items that didn’t have MSG marked on the product
label had something called ”Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein”,
which is just another name for Monosodium Glutamate. It was
shocking to see just how many of the foods we feed our children
everyday are filled with this stuff. They hide MSG under many
different names in order to fool those who carefully read the
ingredient list, so they don’t catch on. (Other names for MSG:
‘Accent’ – ‘Aginomoto’ – ‘Natural Meet Tenderizer’ etc)
But it didn’t stop there.

When our family went out to eat, we started asking at
the restaurants what menu items had MSG. Many employees, even the
managers, swore they didn’t use MSG. But when we ask for the
ingredient list, which they grudgingly provided, sure enough MSG and
Hydrolyzed
Vegetable Protein were everywhere. Burger King,
McDonalds, Wendy’s, Taco Bell , every restaurant, even the sit down
ones like TGIF, Chilis’, Applebees and Denny’s use MSG in abundance. Kentucky Fried Chicken seemed to be the WORST offender: MSG was in
every chicken dish, salad dressing and gravy. No wonder I loved to
eat that coating on the skin, their secret spice was MSG!

So why is MSG in so may of the foods we eat?.. Is it a preservative or a vitamin??
Not according to my friend John. In the book he wrote,
an expose of the food additive industry called “The Slow Poisoning
of America” he said that MSG is added to food for the addictive
effect it has on the human body.

Even the propaganda website sponsored by the food manufacturers lobby group supporting MSG explains
that the reason they add it to food is to make people eat more. A
study of the elderly showed that people eat more of the foods that
it is added to. The Glutamate Association lobby group says
eating more benefits the elderly, but what does it do to the rest of
us? ‘Bet you can’t eat just one’, takes on a whole new meaning where
MSG is concerned! And we wonder why the nation is overweight?

The MSG manufacturers themselves admit that it addicts
people to their products. It makes people choose their product over
others, and makes people eat more of it than they would if MSG
wasn’t added.

Not only is MSG scientifically proven to cause obesity,
it is an addictive substance! Since its introduction into the
American
food supply fifty years ago, MSG has been added in
larger and larger doses to the pre-packaged meals, soups, snacks and
fast foods we are tempted to eat everyday. The FDA has set no
limits on how much of it can be added to food.

They claim it’s safe to eat in any amount. How can
they claim it safe when there are hundreds of scientific studies
with titles like these? : – The monosodium glutamate (MSG) obese rat
as a model for the study of exercise in obesity’. Gobatto CA, Mello
MA, Souza CT,
Ribeiro IA.Res Commun Mol Pathol Pharmacol. 2002.

Yes, that last study was not a typo, it WAS written in 1978.
Both the “medical research community” and “food
manufacturers” have known about MSG’s side effects for decades!
Many more studies mentioned in John Erb’s book link MSG to Diabetes,
Migraines and headaches, Autism, ADHD and even
Alzheimer’s. But what can we do to stop the food manufactures from
dumping fattening and addictive MSG into our food supply and causing
the obesity epidemic we now see?

Even as you read this, G. W. Bush and his corporate
supporters are pushing a Bill through Congress called the “Personal
Responsibility in Food Consumption Act” also known as the
“Cheeseburger Bill”, this sweeping law bans anyone from suing food
manufacturers, sellers and distributors. Even if it comes out that
they purposely added an addictive chemical to their foods.

The Bill has already been rushed through the House of
Representatives, and is due for the same rubber stamp at Senate
level. It is important that Bush and his corporate supporters
get it through before the media lets everyone know
about ‘MSG, the intentional Nicotine for food’.

Several months ago, John Erb took his book and his
concerns to one of the highest government health officials in Canada.
While sitting in the Government office, the official
told him “Sure I know how bad MSG is, I wouldn’t touch the stuff!”
But this top level government official refused to tell the public
what he knew.

The big media doesn’t want to tell the public either,
fearing legal issues with their advertisers. It seems that the
fallout on fast food industry may hurt their profit margin. The
food producers and restaurants have been addicting us to their
products for years, and now we are paying the price for it. Our
children should not be cursed with obesity caused by an addictive
food additive. But what can I do about it?… I’m just one voice!

What can I do to stop the poisoning of our children,
while our governments are insuring financial protection for the
industry that is poisoning us!

This e-mail is going out to everyone I know in an
attempt to tell you the truth that the corporate owned politicians
and media won’t tell you.

The best way you can help to save yourself and your
children from this drug-induced epidemic, is to forward this email
to everyone. With any luck, it will circle the globe before
politicians can pass the legislation protecting those who are
poisoning us. The food industry learned a lot from the tobacco
industry. Imagine if big tobacco had a bill like this in place
before someone blew the whistle on Nicotine?

If you are one of the few who can still believe that
MSG is good for us, and you don’t believe what John Erb has to say,
see for yourself. Go to the National Library of Medicine

Type in the words “MSG Obese”
and read a few of the 115 medical studies that appear.

We the public, do not want to be rats in one giant experiment and we do not approve of food that makes us into a nation of obese, lethargic, addicted sheep, feeding the food industry’s bottom line, while waiting for the heart transplant, diabetic induced amputation, blindness or other obesity induced, life threatening disorders. With your help we can put an end to this poison. Do your part in sending this message out by word of mouth, e-mail or by distribution of this print-out to all your friends all over the world and stop this ‘Slow Poisoning of Mankind’ by the packaged food industry.

Here is another site with Information about this as well

Information about obesity and other effects of processed free glutamic acid (MSG) and where it is hidden in cosmetics, drugs, dietary supplements, vaccines, infant formula, and food fed to people and animals. Loads of Information at this site.